Talk:Ask OLPC a Question about Social Issues

From OLPC

Ref: Privacy and Anonymity

I'm realy worried about the security of "eye witnesses" children.
Since every laptop has a camera, every child with a OLPC-Laptop is a potential "eye witnesses" WITH foto evidences.
Countless newsmen must die because of making fotos of occurrences powerfull parties won't to go public.
I hope no foto of the build-in camera has any unique tag that can be traced to a Laptop/Child.
And what's about the build-in wlan, it is virtual always on and broadcast a unique MAC-adress. Always, always the same, for ever ?
Why not changing the last 4 MAC-digits from time to time randomly ?
That will not hurt, because nobody realy trust in a pure MAC-adress access restriction system. -- Andi

So since every OLPC-Laptop has the

From what I remember of the chip used it can't be locked (turned off until power is interrupted) into microphone off mode, it would require atleast a GPIO pin and a "set" circuit being used and that still relies on the BIOS not being modified (which I guess would be possible if the BIOS is on a non-system flashable ROM and it's NVRAM is made inaccessible during the boot phase, requiring yet another pin), I'd suggest not to worry too much, yes, it is a risk, however arbitary listening might not be possible due to code signing and other methodes, just govermental (which to some might be just as scary to some, but imagine trying to filter usable data from the recordings of 10 000 microphones or more) --Ikarus 23:58, 15 November 2006 (EST)

1 - Speech recognition is highly investigated and used by many surveilance agencies in the world. It is known that echelon, the international domestic spying program uses them. 2 - Will it be possible, theoretically, to access the serial numbers through software only? What's preventing (technologically-wise) it be used for tracking kids and their families by governments/whomever? Am I excited about an international project which so easily could be used to track the on-line activites of children and their families in the developing world?

This story linked at slashdot exemplifies what I'm saying: [1]" Nike+ iPod Used For Surveillance [...] "Our research also shows that there exist simple cryptographic techniques that the Nike+iPod Sport Kit designers could have used to improve the privacy-preserving properties of the Nike+iPod kit,' the group reports. 'Our work underscores the need for a broad public discussion about and further research on the privacy-preserving properties of new wireless personal gadgets,' the group reports."

I originally posted this snippet above. How can the worldwide community if teachers, FLOSS developers, and contributors to the OLPC project be assured that no "spying", or "tracking" code will exist in the antennas firmware, if their specifications wont be disclosed (or will only be to a few select developers who agree to Non Disclosure Agreements)? Personally, my potential involvement with the project will be based on this simple fact: Nobody except a few will know how the antennas and meshing work, and the code that comes out for it, even if free software, may be obscured enough to leave the full functionality of it still in the dark.

I think this is a very serious topic that the OLPC team should look into!

If a unit with a militia such as the Janjaweed had one of those little $20 "hotspot finders" with three lights to indicate the strength of a wireless internet signal, could he use it to find a family hiding in a cellar with their laptop? Mike Serfas 19:38, 15 January 2007 (EST)